Nomogram for predicting opioid-induced nausea and vomiting for cancer pain patients

Abstract

Abstract Objective Opioid-induced nausea and vomiting are frequently observed as an adverse effect in the treatment of cancer-related pain. The factors that affect OINV in cancer patients remain unclear. In this study, we developed a nomogram for predicting the occurrence of OINV in this population using retrospective clinical data. Methods We collected data from 416 cancer pain patients, 70% of whom used the training set to analyze demographic and clinical variables. We used multivariate logistic regression to identify significant factors associated with OINV. Then, we construct a prediction nomogram. The validation set comprises the remaining 30%. The reliability of the nomogram is evaluated by bootstrap resampling. Results Using multivariate logistic regression, we identified five significant factors associated with OINV. The C-index was 0.835 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.828–0.842) for the training set and 0.810 (95% CI, 0.793–0.826) for the validation set. The calibrated curves show a good agreement between the predicted and actual occurrence of OINV. Conclusion In a retrospective study based on five saliency-found variables, we developed and proved a reliable nomogram model to predict OINV in cancer pain patients. Future prospective studies should assess the model’s reliability and usefulness in clinical practice.